June 15, 2010

7:06: He's laying out a "battle plan" to fight the leak at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. He's "deploying" the military.

7:08: What to do during the "siege." A decision has been made to speak in military terms. Of course, he's not the first President to ask us to think about a nonmilitary problem in military terms. The War on X... the moral equivalent of war....

7:12: To make sure this won't happen again, Obama is establishing a commission.

7:15: We need to "jump start" the "clean energy" future. There's "the potential" to create "millions of jobs" but "only" if we "act together." We need to do something big at the national level to make this happen. Some people say we can't afford this, but he's saying we can't afford not to do it. He's vague about what this will be. The only thing he won't accept is doing nothing. He won't accept the "paltry limits of conventional wisdom." So even though we don't "precisely know" what we need to do, we will do it. Like we did in WWII and in going to the moon. We'll do something. And it will have to be big, but we don't know what it is. Then he drops from that scarily high level of abstraction and the unknown to... shrimpers. Something about shrimp people. We must think BIG and... shrimpy.

7:20: And suddenly, it's getting religious. I think he's bringing this speech in for a landing, because... it's a bit prayer-like. There's a "hand" that will "guide us." And — yes — it is the end: "May God bless America."

7:26: Well, that was a terrible speech! When it wasn't grim and dreary, it was grandiose. But the grandiosity was so vague... and half-hearted. Oh! The malaise!

AND: Here's the text of the speech. This is the part that interested me most:

As we recover from this recession, the transition to clean energy has the potential to grow our economy and create millions of jobs -– but only if we accelerate that transition. Only if we seize the moment. And only if we rally together and act as one nation –- workers and entrepreneurs; scientists and citizens; the public and private sectors.

This is the anti-capitalist move. There is all this opportunity, but free enterprise and capitalism can't take advantage of it. We need a top-down, government-imposed scheme, he announces. He doesn't explain why. It's an article of faith.

Now, there are costs associated with this transition [towards energy independence]. And there are some who believe that we can’t afford those costs right now. I say we can’t afford not to change how we produce and use energy....

This is such embarrassing cliché rhetoric: Some say we can't do it. I say we can't not do it.

He cites a bunch of modest ideas that have been suggested and says we should think about them, then says that we have to do something, even though you could take all those things together, impose them, and still not break what he calls our "addiction" to fossil fuel. He blathers about WWII and the moon landing -- as noted above -- and talks about "what has defined us as a nation": "the capacity to shape our destiny.... Even if we’re unsure exactly what that looks like. Even if we don’t yet know precisely how we’re going to get there. We know we’ll get there." That is so hopelessly grandiose and vague, and to keep us from looking at it too long and despairing, he's all: Look! Shrimp!

Each year, at the beginning of shrimping season, the region’s fishermen take part in a tradition that was brought to America long ago by fishing immigrants from Europe. It’s called “The Blessing of the Fleet,” and today it’s a celebration where clergy from different religions gather to say a prayer for the safety and success of the men and women who will soon head out to sea....

Did he say anything about cleaning up the spill, which is by law federal responsibility?

He completely abdicated this responsibility and as far as I can tell has done little to expedite it (I'm not talking about the berms, which is a nutty idea which will likely backfire, but simply getting boom and equipment in place. Skimmers and ships from other countries. The Coast Guard, which is normally a top notch organization, has several commanders who are being stymied in their efforts and others who are just plain incompetent.)

we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Country from the oil spill, whatever the cost may be,

we shall fight the oil spill on the beaches,

we shall fight the oil spill on the landing grounds,

we shall fight in the fields and in the streets,

we shall fight the oil spill in the hills;

we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this gulf coast or a large part of it were slimed and tarred with oil, then our political party in Chicago, armed and guarded by the compliant lefty press, would carry on the struggle, until, in evolution's good time, the Department of the Interior, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the gulf."

It's too bad we didn't elect McCain, who would have banned off shore oil drilling.

There is nothing that Obama could have done at any point since January 2008 that could have earned any support from this crowd. Pretending that "Obama has lost the country" and such malarkey may be fun, but please don't kid yourselves: Obama has lost about 8 percent of his support. And Republicans won't even recapture the Senate in november.

It's also nice to see how ODS can even make BP the victim for some people. Truly hopeless.

JAL wrote: "I approved offshore drilling because I was told it was absolutely safe

He said that? Who in their right mind would ever SAY that?

He is lying."

No he's not lying. He was told offshore drilling was absolutely safe by an idiot with a law degree but no knowledge of oil beyond that it's made into gasoline which makes cars go somehow. What Obama doesn't say is that he hired the idiot who told him offshore drilling was absolutely safe.

wv: grudge (no kidding) (n) what intelligent American people are developing against Obama, the Democrats, and self-identified Progressives generally, and will exercise forcefully come November.

I thought his remark about BP's "recklessness" was rather gratuitous. Shit happens, and certainly he doesn't mean to imply that BP just never cared much whether they caused a disaster or not. And where is his authority, exactly, for confiscating $20,000,000,000 (we need to see all of those zeroes) from BP? I would like Althouse or any other legal eagle to comment on where he derives this authority. It seems to me there already exists a mechanism for civil redress. Certainly BP must pay, but I don't see why they should pay at the whim of an arrogant president.

It's too bad we didn't elect McCain, who would have banned off shore oil drilling.

While I agree with Althouse in that McCain may have actually been worse (though at just this moment it's hard to imagine), at least McCain knows how to lead. Also, he knows what the military can do and what it can't do.

Oh, you mean like Jimmy Carter Malaise? Obama has now opitimized himself as one of the most daft, inept, feckless, incompetent, and foolish people to ever hold the office. He has now besmirched Jimmy Carters reputation.

A few months ago, I approved a proposal to consider new, limited offshore drilling under the assurance that it would be absolutely safe – that the proper technology would be in place and the necessary precautions would be taken.

"BP will have to sell assets to get money to give to an independent political slush fund."

I am a little disappointed in the speech because I was hoping that Obama would immediately declare that he was seizing BP's North American assets and handing them over to a newly nationalized Exxon-US oil company.

Maybe he'll finally get to announcing this in a couple of months, when only 70% of the oil is captured, and thus something must be done about the 20% gap in captured oil versus capturable oil potentialities. For the children, we must take such measures now.

I am a little disappointed in the speech because I was hoping that Obama would immediately declare that he was seizing BP's North American assets and handing them over to a newly nationalized Exxon-US oil company.

You are amazing. You manage to outdo yourself with every comment you post here. Whether he approved or disapproved Deepwater Horizon is irrelevant. The response to the disaster has been a monumental clusterfuck, and Obama is at least partly responsible because he CHOSE to own the problem for political reasons, specifically he saw it as another crisis that ought not be wasted.

You didn't watch your kids very well and they went and broke one of those light bulbs that contain mercury. (You know... the ones that Obama wants us to use)

So instead of cleaning up the mess you decide to throw out all of the light bulbs in your house, beat your children to within an inch of their lives and decide to invent a new light bulb. Nevermind that you will be sitting in the dark for 15 years or that you don't have a fucking clue on HOW to invent a light bulb.

Meanwhile you have broken glass and mercury all over your house.

Maybe we should have elected a MOM in chief instead of a planner. Mom would have cleaned up the mess, disciplined the kids and made some sandwiches.

Oh....also...you plan to make all of your neighbors pay for your new project and take away all of their light bulbs too,.

The last thing you need is for BP geeks to start doing lawsuit risk analysis or CYA in memos when they ought to be heads down like the Apollo 13 geeks "working the problem". Having Holder collecting all their working papers looking for fault is counter productive to mission 1:

IGNORE THE LEAKSEND THE LAWYERSBLAME THE COMPANYOPEN CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONPLAY GOLFACKNOWLEDGE THE LEAKTAKE A VACATIONFIRE SOME UNDERLINGSGIVE A SHORT SPEECHSEND BP A BILLTELL GRADUATES TO TAKE RESPONSIBILITYDEMAND THAT BP SET ASIDE MORE MONEYMAKE A VISIT WITH A DETERMINED FACEMAKE A REALLY LONG AND STUPID SPEECH

Here's how terrible it was ... the booster club at MSNBC thought it was a horrible speech.

If Barack Obama can't get his own cheerleaders to root for the home team, he's fucking done.

What is happening in the mainstream media is that people are beginning to realize that they'll still need their credibility in 2.5 years ... long after Barack Obama has been swept into the dustbin of history.

They'll need jobs. They thought a year ago that they could skate for the next 8 years ... but they're realizing that ain't gonna happen and that with the shitty economy that Barack Obama is going to leave in his wake, they'd better maybe start reporting what a fucking dumb-ass President Dumbo has turned out to be.

I'd give Barack Obama about nine more months and even Ann Althouse won't even admit she voted for this fucking boob.

There is nothing unclean about oil, gas , nuclear and coal extracted carefully. It is semantics aimed at dunces. The construction of literally millions of wind mills will cost us everything we have and get us back less energy than it takes to run the windmills by 100 to 1. This man is an enemy of every American citizen except the wind mill builders over seas.

I also would have preferred if Obama had included some heart-warming New Age sentiments about our planet and our responsibilities to share in our responsibilities for it, calling for the people of the world to set aside their wars and disagreements, to think warmly in unison, sending humanity's collective thoughts into the universe, so that the universe would smile back down upon us, and help us find a cosmic stridex pad so that we can sop up all this oil from the sweet visage of our gentle--but now desperately weeping--earth mother.

Dust Bunny Queen wrote: "Maybe we should have elected a MOM in chief instead of a planner."

What makes you think Obama is even a planner-in-chief. This man couldn't plan breakfast if he had a box of Lucky Charms in one hand, a bottle of milk in the other, and an empty bowl on a table before him... Mmm, let's see, is it milk on the floor, cereal out the window and bowl on the head? Or is it cereal on the floor?.... Michelle!!

The Zero never "approved off-shore drilling", he made a show of approving exploration and that's all, and now he has an excuse, at the cost of more jobs lost, to cancel it. Like the Congress from which he came in '08, there was a great show of approving exploration, only to revoke it after the election.

PS All the National Socialists keep trying to convince themselves (and everybody else) that the conservatives are in the minority, but, looking at the polls, there's always the same 60 - 30 - 10 split with the 60 pointing Right (and most, if not all the 10, going that way when they finally make up their minds).

The political reality is that the smoking hypocrite-in-chief is going to try and get this shoved through and November should be the sole reason to vote to stop this nonsense. For that alone should be a reason.

So Obama goes on TV to push for Cap & Trade...a bill that that will jack energy prices, not plug the leak or clean up the oil....and was supported by BP because they want to make money on the trading of carbon.

Shit happens, and certainly he doesn't mean to imply that BP just never cared much whether they caused a disaster or not.

Are you kidding? You must be a moby.

ne BP man making the call to tell Halliburton to skimp on the cementing job said "who cares, it's done, end of story, it will probably be fine." The Halliburton crew said fine, but get us the hell off this rig, and were on the next helicopter out.

BP did not care much whether they caused a disaster or not. That's why this rig blew, while thousands of others out in deep water have not.

Thanks for nothing Obama you empty suit. Just admit that Acorn will administer the BP Booty Fund and Van Jones will be Chairman. Now you can get back to prolonging the recession with your anti-Business rhetoric.

BP man making the call to tell Halliburton to skimp on the cementing job said "who cares, it's done, end of story, it will probably be fine." The Halliburton crew said fine, but get us the hell off this rig, and were on the next helicopter out. BP did not care much whether they caused a disaster or not.

A caller to a local radio show mentioned Obama's praise of Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, who's coordinating this thing, and said "If Thad Allen had been admiral during WW II, there'd still be German subs in Lake Pontchartrain."

He's retiring in July, and I feel like Obama's sticking with him till then, and it's a disaster for us. Allen is out of touch, doesn't know what resources he has on hand and what's been offered, for the first month was a suck-up to BP. When someone asked him about unused boom and boats at a location where oil was encroaching he replied "I guess I'm just slow and stupid" - I assume he meant that sarcastically but the response down here was "duh, yeah. I guess you are."

What I hear in this speech is about claims and restoration. It's as if Obama has given up on defense of the coast, and the wetlands.

Today, we're told BP-employed clean-up workers were stepping on pelican chicks and eggs, and tossing oiled boom into the nesting area. What the hell? We're trying to save the pelicans, not kill them!

BP's just grabbing guys at the rent-a-laborer shop and giving them no training. That's why the press is being pushed around by their rent a cops - they don't want you to see the extent of the problem, and Obama and the Coast Guard are letting them get away with it.

I've never been so convinced that we're all lackeys to a corporate-government alliance. This is more about protecting BP's stockholders as it is protecting American workers and our environment.

The alternative energy talk is complete bullshit. He knows we can't convert from petro-chemicals at any meaningful percentage. This is theater. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Beth said...BP did not care much whether they caused a disaster or not. That's why this rig blew, while thousands of others out in deep water have not.

I don't know the part of the story you're telling, but I read an interesting article that I think was in the WSJ 10 days ago. It focused on the 23 y/o gal who picked up the mike and called the Mayday on the guard channel after the rig blew. The Captain of the rig turned to her with a glazed look and said, "nobody authorized you to do that".

I was struck by the bifircated chain of command between Transocean and BP. All decisions, even safety critical ones needed approvals by the senior men from both firms. Unlike even the most hide-bound assembly line where any worker can stop the line for a safety reason (but of course needs to be able to explain why) on the Rig, the system was designed for paralysis in an emergency.

There is nothing that Obama could have done at any point since January 2008 that could have earned any support from this crowd.

Patently false, Monty, but then every word you type is a lie in some form or another, right down to "the," "a," and "an."

Once he discovered that the reason why the Coast Guard had to turn away offers of assistance from the Dutch and others was the 1920 Jones Act, he could have called for an emergency session of Congress to repeal the Act or at least suspend it in the Gulf of Mexico until the crisis is past.

Once he found out from petroleum engineers that runaway gushers can be stopped using explosives, he could have given BP X number of days (maybe 7, maybe 10) to cap that well or he'd order the Navy in with conventional explosives to blast that thing until it stopped leaking. Of course once it was blasted, BP would have to start drilling all over again, but that would have been quite a motivator not to screw around for day after day and week after week, as happened.

In other words, he could have solicited advice from experts and he could have demonstrated leadership.

If he were really serious about reducing America's dependence on oil he would have talked about natural gas, nuclear energy, and clean coal technologies, not solar cells and wind turbines. Time for "He's so lame" by Carly Simon.

There is one exception I claim as my own... Any post having to do with the impeachment of Obama will have at first my undivided attention.. upon a chance.. my undivided effort. enough to talk my tea party to get behind it.

Drill Sgt., that's a great example. The BP men - business managers - made decisions that overruled the safety protocols, and their own engineers' designs. The rig appears to have had a fuzzy chain of command on the operations end, as your example shows. There was more to that story - the guy who did try to activate the blow-out preventer did it only after waiting on the guy who's job it was to make the call. He was in the shower, and no one was acting in his stead. Clusterfuck is the right word, I think.

And I don't believe most rigs are run that way. That's why the men who worked it had complained to their wives, why Schlumberger and Halliburton contractors had expressed their concerns.

If you want to believe it's just a matter of "shit happens," then you're pretty much saying drilling is too dangerous, and should be abandoned. I don't believe that.

Big Mike, I see Big Oil giving money to everyone in Congress, and running for office. If a Republican was in office right now, we'd see merely a difference in style. Jindal and Vitter talk tough with BP on one hand, but Vitter tried to keep the cap on BP's liability.

Big Oil's trying to cut themselves off from BP - I don't know how successful that will be. It looks like none of them are actually prepared for this kind of disaster - but BP courted disaster more so than Shell, for example.

I've got some praise for Jindal, some questions, too. BP ponied up $25 million a few weeks ago to Jindal, and he held onto it, all the while complaining about resources, and claims. Use the money, Bobby! I like his activity on getting the berms started, and getting some tankers finally to suck up some oil, and also sinking some barges to form barrier reefs.

I depart with your analysis in my complete cynicism about all politicians. I don't see any of them doing much to damage Big Oil. Even Obama's moratorium here doesn't hurt stockholders since the rigs will just move somewhere else. It's the workers that get hurt, and all the industry that intersects with the oil business offshore. I expect not enough of those are on the stock index.

Big Mike - check in on the Baton Rouge Advocate's website and the Times-Picayune (New Orleans) occasionally, and you'll keep up with the local efforts.

If you pay attention, you'll see the politicos are all trying to tar the other with who's politicizing the spill. From clusterfuck to daisy chain. That doesn't mean they're not acting in the best interests of dealing with this, but they're smart enough to stop and throw elbows, just enough, not too much.

I've got class in the morning. It's hard not to remain obsessively engaged with following the news, the pundits, this discussion, the god-awful pictures...maybe it's a good thing I'm teaching summer courses, indeed.

Look lefties, your guy is clueless. His speech tonight was crappy, but not unusually so, just another drop in the drip, drip, drip of failure.

And you know what? He's embarrassed, but he doesn't give a shit. Wait for it--he'll play golf this week.

The silly manchild doesn't get it. He can't lead. He's never managed shit. And we are paying a terrible price, and I am by God sick of it.

The emperor has no clothes, and he's going down the crapper faster than Jimmy Carter could have imagined. But never underestimate the desperation of a psychopath. Keep laughing at the douche. Keep calling him what he is--I-N-C-O-M-P-E-T-E-N-T.

We're $130 trillion in the hole give or take a few trillion. And we're putting up with the shenanigans of this asshat and Congress? Come the cool temperate climes of November we can start the process of flushing the steaming pile of shit that we've allowed to fester in Washington and our statehouses.

Beth, I really appreciate the time you take, keeping us all informed of what's really going on down there. It really sucks that LA is getting smacked around again. I hope that you get some mild tropical storms that wash all the oil away without doing any other damage!

Only the establishment, in-office Republicans can impeach. Problem is that they are guilty of the same sort of corruption and malfeasance that Obama is. This was shown pretty clearly in the Clinton trial, and in the many revelations of Republican impropriety that came out since, especially sexual impropriety.

This is one of those times I really wish Obama was what people said he was. I am not celebrating his stumbling because real people and real places are hurt when he stumbles and is apparently entirely flabbergasted about what to do.

So put it a little more clearly for me. I'm dense. Are you saying that BP thought it would be a good idea to create a public relations and an environmental disaster? That they were sure they would get away with this because they're a Big Evil Company? You haven't got enough kapok between your ears to float a grasshopper.

Engineers do their best to perform a task without it costing too much money. That is what engineers do. They are not too interested in the snail darter population, because that is not what they do. But think about this, Einstein-- it is in their best interest and the interests of the company they work for to build a wellhead that does not blow out. If you think they allowed this to happen for the sake of a few yards of concrete, you have a lot to learn about the real world. Sometimes the physical situation is different from the one you're prepared for. Which is another way of saying shit happens. Wise up, Rachel fucking Carson.

"This is more about protecting BP's stockholders as it is protecting American workers and our environment."

It just feels that way in the "theater" near you, Beth. British theater goers are watching their own, equally tragic play.

Perhaps you feel that, as Americans, we don't need to be as concerned about the end of the British play, but surely, and at least objectively, you realize that needs to be an important aspect of our President's concern?

He isn't the man behind the curtain. Far from it. He's the President, who along with Great Britain's Prime Minister, is trying to balance competing interests on his shoulders, in hopes that both plays in two different countries will open to another full house soon enough.

This is the anti-capitalist move. There is all this opportunity, but free enterprise and capitalism can't take advantage of it. We need a top-down, government-imposed scheme, he announces. He doesn't explain why. It's an article of faith.

Sounds like Ann prefers the sort of faith that got industry to write their own regulations and sleep with the regulators.

That's the way to defend free enterprise, Ann! Just come out and say it! Go get 'em!

Beth, You obviously know nothing about the oil industry. You don't get to be a decision maker in that industry unless you are an engineer, until you get up into the rarified air of strategic decision makers. Do you contend Tony Hayward told them to skimp on concrete because he begrudged a few tens of thousands of dollars on an experimental well?

The drunk driving analogy is just awful. Drunk drivers are not anticipating profit and loss statements, and they are not accountable to shareholders and boards of directors.

Tyrone, I wish there wasn't a culture of poor safety at BP, that there hadn't been a series of bad decisions on a rig that was over-budget and over-schedule. You keep yammering about a few yards of concrete, when you know from reading the testimony of men on the rig, these latest emails, that it was more. The evidence just doesn't support your faith in the process.

"Clean energy" can only create jobs if it is more economically efficient than "unclean energy". If it is more economically efficient, the private sector will embrace it without government meddling.

And only if we rally together and act as one nation –- workers and entrepreneurs; scientists and citizens; the public and private sectors

The thing that strikes me as odd about this creepy corporatist slogan is the contrasts he draws. "Public and private", ok. "Workers and entrepreneurs", ok, if you subscribe to the belief that business owners don't count as workers (which the Left doesn't) then those are two contrasting groups too.

But... "scientists and citizens"? Is this meant to express a technocratic "experts vs the rest of you" sort of thing, or is it just bad writing?

The rig was millions over-budget - every day over cost $500,000 and it was more than a month behind schedule. They weren't seeking to save a few thousand bucks on cement, they were saving millions in time. The BP email exchange said the cheaper cementing approach "saves a lot of time … saves a good deal of time/money."

Yes. And they failed to remove him from office, took a huge approval rating hit in the polls, and lost seats in the following election.

This lesson is exactly the reason the Democrats never impeached Bush -- not even after all the endless whining about what a criminal he supposedly was, not even after his approval ratings reached Nixonian levels. The lesson is that the American public doesn't approve of impeachment for anything short of behavior the PUBLIC considers outrageously criminal -- and in modern history only Nixon has met that standard.

Puzzling out the subsidies to the coal business is as unnerving as edging through a dark mineshaft swarming with Velcro-winged bats. This is because a big chunk of the subsidies are not direct handouts, but packaged as tax credits, tax breaks, and other goodies too numerous to itemize here. The U.S. coal industry enjoyed subsidies of around $17 billion between 2002 and 2008, including tax credits for production of "nonconventional" fuels ($14.1 billion), tax breaks on coal royalties ($986 million), exploration, and development breaks ($342 million), according to a study by the Environmental Law Institute.

On top of this federal largesse, state and local governments coddle coal with hundreds of millions per year. The Kentucky state government’s net subsidy to coal is $115 million. Virginia grants tax credits of about $26 million to power plants just to burn Virginia coal, and doles out credits ranging from 40 cents to $2 per ton for another 20 million tons not burned by power plants. Bioregionalism at its finest.

Around $1.5 billion of the federal costs are associated with damages to miners’ health such as the notorious black lung disease. Thinking of the miners’ plight lands us smack in a morass of hidden subsidies as thick as the billion gallons of coal-ash sludge that poured into eastern Tennessee in 2008...

Hate to get in the way of Reverent talking out of his irreverent ass, but some things just needed to be done.

As I maintained in my original post, I am fully on board with BP paying any and all damages they may have created. I'm not trying to make excuses for them-- that's how big boys play.

As for safety practices, certainly you are aware Deepwater Horizon received a District Safety Award for Excellence (SAFE)from MMS? Is MMS in on this too?

I have yet to hear you make a case for why BP might want to eschew all of its fiscal and civil responsibilities and just let the damn thing blow. It makes no sense, but you just seem to think they are a bunch of evil men, so no reasons need be given.

Why does Ritmo Urban Legend believe that continually talking about a president two years out of office is a good argument? Do you really believe that anyone cares at this point what the last guy did about some unrelated thing?

Please yield the floor to Beth, moron. She is a leftist who, as usual, is making concrete (forgive the pun) points about actual facts on the ground.

Do you really believe that anyone cares at this point what the last guy did about some unrelated thing??

He embodied an approach to politics and to the issues that y'all just can't rid yourselves of.

Please yield the floor to Beth, moron. She is a leftist who, as usual, is making concrete (forgive the pun) points about actual facts on the ground.

I'm not a leftist, but I have my concerns for things that to the Republican Rabble are just political fodder. If Beth has got you concerned about actual facts, that's nice. In the meantime I'll still skewer your asses politically for pretending, and trying to make us think that, you gave a damn all along.

Sure. Right. Gotcha. I'm not a conservative. It's just that all my views make me sound like one.

Of course, it's mundane for leftists to have gi-normous arguments about the vast differences between communists and socialists. One wants government to own the means of production. The other wants government to own the means of producing.

If you want to be a forever hopelessly partisan tool, that's fine. I've heard you depart from party line before to make a decent point (on one rare occasion, and in an incredibly historical context), but if you can't help resorting to role-play, keep it to yourself.

Obama made the oil his oil when he made Bush the blame for his early shortcomings.

Karma has never touched the presidency this Oprahclose.

All I'm saying (for the hard of understanding) is that unlike democrats, we (regular folks) are not celebrating the hardship of thousands of Americans. We are asking for a distant, unmoved federal government to do what it promised.

The BP email exchange said the cheaper cementing approach "saves a lot of time … saves a good deal of time/money."

Certainly companies are always interested in saving time and money, but that motivation in and of itself doesn't prove negligence. Was BP's cementing approach compliant with Federal regulations and within accepted industry standards? That is the key question that your Yahoo story doesn't address.

To me Beth exemplifies everything that is wrong with America today. We must never take risks, or pursue profit. Bad things happen when we do, so let's just quit. And when bad things do happen, someone must be blamed. The blame-hanging is more important than any other factor, beyond the benefits to society that might have been contemplated, beyond repairing the damage, beyond learning from our mistakes. All the better to blame them if they are a Big Evil Company, of the sort that Beth learned at university is always out to screw us, whether it does them any good or not. They just like screwing us, as Beth's professors made clear.

Ritmo -- You have no sense of humor whatsoever and you apparently have a terribly faulty sarcasm detector. I saw this in a thread yesterday, when John Stodder made you look like more of a tool than you are.

No one here has accused you or anyone of wanting the government to own any means of any production. That would be clear to any average sixth grader. Please go back and read above.

Obamas speech is so easy to Fisk, nobody seems willing to embarrass him.. its sad (that's putting it brightly).. because all it really means is that we might as well live in a Chavez style "democracy".. were "timidity" is rewarded.

"What I hear in this speech is about claims and restoration. It's as if Obama has given up on defense of the coast, and the wetlands."

He is a law professor, not a leader.

Beth,While I don't dispute anything you are saying, I just don't know, the details of who's at fault with the blow out and how it happened is likely to be batted around for a while before it gets clear. My guess is what you're saying is close to the most likely scenario, but such things including the facts can take a lot of turns as they come out. Regardless, it just doesn't matter right now.

The important thing now is action to help the situation: the capping, the mitigation, the cleanup. This is where the governemnt could be doing more and apparently is not. It seems this failure is mostly a result of bad leadership. This is something you should be furious with this President about. BP and whoever will get their due later. The pols will use them for years to come as political fodder, as it should be.

Right now this President needs pressure on him to act. With this speech he appears immune to pressure and deaf to your concerns in any real way. He's should be your target right now.

Bag, he's the target all right. I just suspect that he wants the viewing field for that target to expand from the far left and start to get the right to appropriate some of the same concerns they have.

It seems to be working. We can debate the ethics of his tactics, but only if you accept that there is a moral dimension to environmental disaster in the first place.

The BP email exchange said the cheaper cementing approach "saves a lot of time … saves a good deal of time/money."

I wrote an email just the other day saying (paraphrased), "we should go with opinion A, we'll save a lot of time and money".

Now I'm sure that if, option A turns out to be a disaster for our customers, someone could seize that out of context and say "see? see??? those evil money-grubbers didn't care about the little guy". But the reality is that option A is as good as the other options from a quality perspective; the reason for preferring it to the other options is that it saves us money.

Don't assume that talking about profits mean that people are ONLY considering profits.

One more thing -- If I were suing BP, the negligence theory I'd try first is res ipsa loquitor.

The classic case is: guy walks by a building and a piano falls on his head. This is de facto negligence on the part of the owner of the building. Pianos should not fall out of buildings onto people's heads. Period. Guilty. End of lawsuit.

Similarly, if you are operating an oil well in an ocean and it explodes, you fucked up. End of story. The damages are yours to pay.

The important thing now is action to help the situation: the capping, the mitigation, the cleanup.

We're in agreement, bagoh20. I don't think the government can do anything with the capping, and there's probably worse to come there, despite the efforts day and night of that group of engineers - if you're reading The Oil Drum blog, you'll have some idea of what they're up against. But the containment and cleanup is where I really, really don't trust BP to have a plan, or an infrastructure, or even a real motive, to go balls to the wall, as we need them to. So that's where I see our government being ineffective and disorganized.

Revenant said... But "scientists and citizens"? Is this meant to express a technocratic "experts vs the rest of you" sort of thing, or is it just bad writing?

I think it was just an attempt to get another alliteration in: "Private...public", "Scientists ... Citizens." Beyond that it means nothing. To Obama, to achieve full presidentification, you just have to sprinkle a speech with enough alliterations, borrowed time-tested phrases like "the last full measure of devotion," toss in a few straw men and destroy them, and use plenty of high-blown meaningless rhetoric like "some say we cannot afford to do blah-blah, I say we cannot afford NOT to do blah-blah."

Obama is working his word magic, clouding the minds of the public with his preternatural eloquence. Is it still working? Don't think so.

"he wants the viewing field for that target to expand from the far left and start to get the right".

The right wants this stopped, the damage to the environment minimized and the well capped. They don't want it to be turned into another crisis to exploit for every leftist dream from banning drilling to wind farms. He needs to focus and act.

His inaction is exactly what you would expect from someone with no executive leadership experience. I blame you among others for that. That's the problem right now, not the crap in the other 3/4 of his speech. This is not a war, this is not a terror attack, it's not even a hurricane. What needs done is not dangerous nor does it involve an intelligent aggressive enemy, it's just logistics and leadership. In short, it's what you hired him for.

Revenant, I try to save time and money every day, and yes, context is everything. More will be revealed, but there's already a picture coming together of negligence.

If there wasn't negligence, then we will have to stop at least deep water drilling. If this kind of disaster could occur within a best practices, rigorously safe environment, then we're screwed. Maybe that's the case. If this rig was being run at less than a best-case safety level, then BP screwed up.

If we don't understand what went wrong on that rig, we can't avoid it in the future. Risk-taking for reward has to be balanced with responsibility. Why would we allow people to take risks with our resources, and just walk away with a "shit happens!" when they fail to take precautions along with the risks?

We are not going to be able to replace oil and the petro-chemical industry; therefore, we have to ensure that industry balances risk with responsibility. What you call "blame" is what grownups call accountability.

Seven, he's been; his mother is Mexican and they visit Mexico City a few times a year. That's why I'm not sure if he's kidding. His older brother plans on a BA in History, then law school, so maybe this is the little one's way of poking him a bit for being over-achieving and serious.

Hey why no discussion of BP's moral and legal responsibility, Professor Althouse? Seems to me there's been a deafening silence from you on that score. Also, what energy policy do you actually favor? Or are you only interested in knocking Obama?

His inaction is exactly what you would expect from someone with no executive leadership experience. I blame you among others for that.

Ever since Reagan (and with the exception of Bush the First) you've been nominating and electing figureheads whose only experience prior to politics consisted of sinecures. To complain about the cozy relationship between regulators and the regulated without first taking issue with the right reeks of insincerity, and will be, rightly or wrongly, viewed that way by the left and middle.

Maybe now is not the time for politics. I can appreciate that. I can also appreciate that the lessons the right needs to learn have only scratched the surface of where they need to ultimately settle in. And I'm not talking about getting bloodied and bruised politically. I could care less about retribution. I'm talking about some deeper reflection on the environment and the need to refuse to see a close relationship between government and industry as a substitute for the relationship that should instead exist between government and the people.

This is what happens in an organization when an incompetent is hired. If that organization is weak and defective there will be people who will continue to defend them despite the fact that everyone can clearly see they are blowing it, even when those people are themselves being hurt by that incompetence.

If the organization is truly dysfunctional that will prevent anyone from fixing the situation until it's too late. Then some disaster is caused by what has now grown to organizational negligence.

This is likely what happened at BP and what is happening with the U.S. Executive branch as well. stop defending this guy - he's blowing it.

On an unrelated point, let's stop with this impeachment talk. Bad policy and utter ineffectual leadership are not high crimes or misdemeanors. Were you people not paying attention in junior high school?

Our political process is a good process. Please participate. There's no point in feeding fantasies about some small-d democratic orgy that will not occur. Thank you.